A federal lawsuit in Detroit is shining a harsh, and needed, light on a consequence of an ever-hardening public attitude toward criminals in Michigan.

With 358, Michigan has the nation’s second-highest number of inmates serving life sentences in prison without the possibility of parole for crimes they committed as juveniles.

“Juvenile Lifers.” That’s what this newspaper, six other Booth newspapers in Michigan and MLive.com called the criminals in a collaborative series of articles published this week.

It’s an eye-opening report on kid criminals who society has locked up and then thrown away the key. Some committed truly heinous acts of murder. Others are in prison for life for driving getaway cars while their murderer accomplices copped a plea and decades later are free once again.

Some were sent to prison before they were even old enough to drive.

The American Civil Liberties Union is suing, calling Michigan’s juvenile lifer sentences cruel and unusual punishment, a violation of the U.S. Constitution. The lawsuit seeks parole reviews for juvenile lifers once they reach the age of 21, and then every five years.

There’s no harm in reviewing the cases of such inmates periodically, nor of holding out the possibility that some might get a chance to build a life as a free adult — an opportunity they cut short with their crimes.

That’s more — much more — than their victims ever got. The murdered and those who survive them will never get a second chance.

And truly, some juvenile lifers have earned every day that they will live behind bars for the rest of their lives.

But what about the kid who drove the getaway car? Or the teen who served as an accomplice to murder in any of a number of ways, without actually swinging the knife or pulling the trigger?

Michigan law, written long ago for adults, treats them all the same. Convicted of first-degree murder, accomplices and murderers get mandatory life sentences in prison without the possibility of parole.

It’s a harsh, and frankly just, punishment for adults who presumably are capable of determining the difference between right and wrong; adults who should have considered the consequences of their actions and turned away before committing murder or helping a killer.

Yet, there are good reasons why society doesn’t let juveniles vote in elections, smoke tobacco or sign legal documents until they have reached the age of 18, or to drink alcohol until they are 21.

Teens aren’t considered fully mature or capable of making weighty decisions until they have reached these milestone ages.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 2005 recognized that, and research indicating that adolescents have an immature sense of responsibility, when it ruled death sentences for juveniles ages 17 and younger unconstitutional.

Meanwhile, Michigan’s virtual death sentence, life in prison without parole, has been applied to younger and younger criminals since 1988. That was the year laws were changed to charge 15- and 16-year-olds as adults for serious crimes. Before that, 17-year-olds were the only minors charged as adults. In 1997, the bar was lowered further still, allowing 14-year-olds to be charged as adults, and judges were no longer allowed the option of sentencing minors in serious crimes to juvenile detention with release at age 21.

Michigan has taken the judging away from its judges in cases where the wisdom of Solomon is needed most.

It’s not that these juvenile lifers deserve anything, much less a parole hearing.

But in a criminal justice system that does make allowances for adults who may be incompetent to stand trial, for example, there should be room to periodically review the cases of juveniles too young to make adult decisions, yet forced to choose between plea bargains versus trials.

Some gambled on trials and lost, after losing a chance to plead to a lesser offense and an opportunity decades later for parole.

This even though they never would have been allowed through the doors of a casino.